


dark side of the sun

by myadamantiumheart



Series: The Good Doctor [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Background Relationships, Blood and Injury, Complicated Relationships, Corporal Punishment, Dark Namizake Minato, Knifeplay, M/M, Masochism, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:47:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26647735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myadamantiumheart/pseuds/myadamantiumheart
Summary: Set 4 years before 'spit on that cut'.Kakashi and Obito make a (big) mistake. Minato has to (reluctantly) put them in their place.No one child of the Family gets to remain a good man.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito
Series: The Good Doctor [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907677
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	dark side of the sun

**Author's Note:**

> So I had been wanting to write about the darker, more fucked up aspects of the mafia!AU because it's not really just epic romances, it's also a criminal empire, and then Anannua dropped me a prompt that ended with me writing this entirely over the span of yesterday afternoon/evening in between other things I had to be doing 😭 I mentioned Minato being Not A Good Person in the last fic despite his frequently sunny personality and this is indeed the reality of that aspect of him. 
> 
> Thank you for letting me run away with this one Anannua, it really took off on me and I just so appreciate and love that you also love my weird little universes ❤️
> 
> It would have gone in 'the way we fit together' but it's pretty tonally different so I chose to put it in another fic entirely, and if I write more dark-ish/dark fic for this AU I'll probably attach it to this!

They all have scars. 

Kakashi has pale patches across his knuckles, blooming webs of tissue from gunshot wounds, the trademark slice that discolored his left eye. Rin has kitchen missteps on her fingertips, the discolored splash of often-skinned knees, a line on her lower stomach where her appendix was removed. Obito has the swirling, softening aftermath of his highschool accident, the jagged lightning of the stab wound that Rin first treated, the red-purple splotch on his leg from a motorcycle tailpipe he’d been careless with. 

And Obito has a scar that they don’t talk about, too. If it’s up to Kakashi, they never will.

* * *

“Just disown him for a few years,” Tobirama’s cold voice cuts through the mahogany door of Hashirama’s office (once Butsuma’s) like it’s not there at all. “Exile him to Suna, where we still have allies, or further afield to Shimogakure. Send him monthly allowances, for all I care. But his continued presence without _punishment_ will only further aggravate things with the Hyuuga and we cannot afford more casualties.” 

“You will not,” Madara spits, fire on his tongue and rage permeating every word, “send my nephew away for something that is equally the Hatake boy’s fault. You haven’t dared to ask the Senju for something so bold, have you? You might as well ask Jiraiya to sink that boy in the river, if you’re going to be sending my family from me like this.” Hashirama clears his throat, audibly upset, and they can hear papers shuffling on his desk. 

“You both know how Hyuuga view the members of a Family,” he says. “They are a currency to be bought and sold. They will not be satisfied without punishment, it’s true, but the idea of blinding one family and leaving the other alone is unacceptable as well. The mistake of recklessness, the loss of our mutual business contacts, and the destruction of the Hyuuga’s largest arms shipment this year is something that can only be repaid partially in money. Minato has paid them for the property damages, and made up for the betrayal of our business contact to the authorities. That, at least, is not entirely the fault of Kakashi nor Obito. It is the perceived insult and their poor handling of the situation that the Hyuuga will not accept monetary recompense for, and that is what we must decide here today.” 

“It would be unwise to disown either of them for any amount of time, truly,” Izuna says, smooth and calm, though his voice betrays the fact that it’s a great effort not to shout at Tobirama. Obito has never doubted that Izuna and Madara love him. Kakashi, however, has never been able to count on Tobirama’s affection, and Hashirama can be as changeable as the winds. “We cannot allow the Hyuuga to think they can coerce us into disposing of our heirs this way, especially not when they put theirs on such a pedestal. And it would be equally unwise not to punish them at all, because mistakes like this cannot be taken back, and reckless behavior is ruinous to us all. They are still young, barely twenty and taking on responsibility that even Tajima and Butsuma wouldn’t have given any of us at that age. Do not be so hasty to burn and salt the fields with such careless abandon, or we will all starve come winter.” 

“With all due respect,” Minato murmurs, hardly loud enough for them to hear. “I know this has caused a great deal of trouble for both families. But I recall a time not so long ago when I too was young and made reckless decisions that _shishou_ had to smooth over, and in the end it was he who punished me for my transgressions.” 

“What are you suggesting?” Tobirama asks him, fingers tapping audibly on the thick wood of Hashirama’s desk. 

“At the end of the day,” Minato says, a dangerous edge to his tone. This is the man who other families flee-on-sight from. It is the man who sits at the right hand of the Toad Sage and the Gods of Konoha, and the man who streets whisper about as the Yellow Flash. “The boys are _mine_. I will deal with them and their punishment alone.” 

A moment of silence. 

"You know what you have to do," Hashirama says, and that is that. 

* * *

It’s true that the two of them had been reckless, made stupid decisions, fallen astray in a spectacular way. Kakashi can’t remember feeling this guilty about something since he was six, and he dropped the last framed photo of his mother that his father had, kept on the bedside table, and shattered it into a million pieces. He had cried, then, for hours, trying to pick up the glass until his father found him with cut-up hands and swept him away from the mess. When his father died, he’d almost lost the ability to feel that guilt. There was no one to feel guilty _for_ anymore, no Sakumo to disappoint. And then Minato had picked him up with sunshine hands, smiling so widely at him, bringing him home to Jiraiya and Tsunade and winding his way right into Kakashi’s heart. He feels guilty for disappointing _him_ , even if he could care less what Tobirama thinks. He feels guilty for dragging Obito into the fire with him (although Obito claims it’s all the same, and that he’s at fault for everything.) 

He feels guilty for the look of dread and resolution in Obito’s eye when Minato leaves Hashirama’s office with the coldest winter sun upon his face and beckons them to follow him without a single word.

They’re both a little taller than Minato now, and Obito is certainly broader than him, but his presence is such that their height makes no difference. It is suffocating, burning, inescapable in the confines of Minato’s car on the drive home. He doesn’t say anything, too clearly ruminating on the conversation they’d eavesdropped on (or perhaps they were meant to hear it after all.) When they pull into the driveway of a home Kakashi hasn’t lived in for over a year, he finally turns to them, jaw gritted shut like steel and eyes absolutely shuttered. 

“Of course,” he says, warm hand reaching across the center console to cup the edge of Obito’s cheek, to curl across his jaw so tenderly, so at odds with his expression. “You know I love you, hmm? Please remember that, when we go inside, and I must become their tool.” Obito shudders slightly, pressing into his hand, and nods. Minato watches him for a long minute, searching his face, before he twists around to Kakashi, in the back seat. “And if you hate me, I’ll understand, Kakashi, but please…. promise me you’ll still come home when Kushina calls.” He swallows glass, sharp nails, but he nods, he promises Minato with his wordless affirmations and when Minato goes into the house, they follow. He stops in the kitchen downstairs, opens the fridge, grabs one of the bottles of apple juice that Kushina always keeps on the bottom shelf. She likes them, the glass kind shaped like the fruit itself, says they’re more fun to drink out of. Minato pours it into two glasses, half-and-half in equal measures, perfectly even as he is in everything.

“Drink it,” he sets them down in front of Obito and Kakashi, no longer refusing to meet their eyes. “It will help.” Help with what, Kakashi doesn’t know- but Obito grabs his glass and downs it without complaint, without a word, and so he does too. He follows Minato helplessly, hopelessly, climbing the stairs to his office as if in a dream, and when the door shuts behind them and they’re standing on the cream colored rug (a gift from Kushina when they were engaged, if Kakashi recalls correctly) and the time of reckoning is here. 

* * *

Minato pulls the bottle of whiskey from the tray behind his desk without bothering to ask if they want any. It’s something of an insult, really, that he poured them both apple juice, like children, and now he’s going to drink whiskey neat, with his business slacks and his slate colored button-down shirt, his sleeves rolled up over his forearms. But they are, after all, here to be punished. Kakashi can remember being in this office only a handful of times. It’s not a place he ever needs to go, unless Minato needs him to fetch something, or he needs to fetch Minato. The bookcases towering, the desk imposing, the armchairs and the couch immaculate- it looks for all the world like the office of the man Minato pretends to be, a businessman, a virtuous husband, a lover of words. But the Minato in front of them has no virtue left, and his eyes are winter storms when he finally settles his crystal glass on the edge of the desk and rounds its corners to stand in front of Obito. 

“Madara told me you tried to take the blame from Kakashi’s shoulders,” he murmurs, taking Obito’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You made quite a case, in fact, that he should only punish you. Is it true, Obito? Was Kakashi innocent, in this?” 

“Yes,” Obito swallows, his jaw clenched tight, eyes boring directly into Minato’s even though it almost hurts to make eye contact with him. Kakashi wants to scream, because how can he- how can he take the blame for what they share, his foolish, reckless boyfriend who keeps trying to take the bullets for him. They had both failed to check the contact. They had both failed to look, to see, to notice that their operation had been compromised. They had both failed, to the tune of too many dollars to count, and left the Hyuuga, the Uchiha, and the Senju under-armed and burning alive. He’d really thought that Tobirama would have shot him then and there, that Madara would have dropped him off the bridge on the way home, that he would never see Minato again. But he’s seeing Minato now, and Minato’s seeing Obito, and Minato is, as always, far more perceptive than he appears. 

The solid crack of his hand across Obito’s face is so startling that Kakashi nearly yells, watching the taller man fight not to swear from the sudden sharp pain and drop directly to his knees before their boss (their _sensei_ , their shishou.) It’s strange to see him hit Obito like this, here, in this office where everything is put exactly in its place (where Minato is putting them exactly in _their_ place) because he’s never moved to do so outside of a spar before. Kakashi knows, from their spars at Dai’s dojo, how exacting Minato’s hits can be, but not here. Never here. Not to them. 

“You should know better than to lie to me by now,” Minato says softly, bending down again to cup Obito’s reddened cheek. “But it’s okay, Obito, because I _understand_ you. You want to take the punishment for Kakashi, to spare him the pain, because you’ve always been better at handling wounds with a smiling face. I dare say you get something out of it, taking his lashes. If I were inclined to wonder, I might think you even get _off_ on it. It’s alright, you know. I know how it feels to take pain for someone else. I know how boys like you throw themselves on the sword, how the bruises feel, how you love the adrenaline of it because you love _him_ , don’t you?” Obito looks like he wants to close his eye, dazed a little by the hit, mesmerized by Minato’s low tone speaking right through the core of him. It’s not untrue, what Minato is saying. His wires are crossed a little, especially where it comes to Kakashi. Maybe they fought too much after highschool, too many spars that turned into wrestling that turned into Kakashi grinding down against him in their apartment, laughing at the way that the bite of his teeth got Obito hard. Maybe it’s the rush of Kakashi watching him proudly, wiping the blood off his knuckles in an alleyway and kissing his split lip, shoving him into the backseat of the truck to work off the adrenaline with his mouth and his hands and his pent up frustration. Maybe that’s what turned Obito into the man he is, the man who’ll beg for someone else’s punishment, who’ll bleed for Kakashi, who’ll kill for him. 

And Minato knows that, doesn’t he?

“What you don’t understand,” he says, a bitter twinge of regret in his voice, his lips nearly touching Obito’s as he watches the blood spread pink through his unscarred cheek. “What you don’t understand is that it might not hurt Kakashi like _this_ ,” and he presses his fingers into that swelling redness cruelly, dragging a short gasp of pain out of Obito. ”But don’t you think it hurts him to watch you bleed, Obito? Don’t you think it hurts _me_ , too? Ah, well,” he says, standing up and letting Obito’s chin go, reaching over to grab another sip of his drink. Kakashi can see the tension in his frame, the pain in his eyes, the slight tremble of his hand where it struck Obito’s face. Minato is good at killing people, good at being ruthless, and good at advancing the needs of the Family, but he has never been good at being cruel to the ones he loves. Kakashi’s chest aches, his hands clenched tight, the blood thrumming through his ears so fast he can hardly hear a thing Minato is saying. He’s angry, guilty, outraged, burning, cold as ice in his stomach where he knows that this is how they pay their debts, it could have been _so much worse_ (it could have been Tobirama or Madara) but it feels- it feels like being stabbed in slow motion, to watch. 

“You made your choice,” Minato murmurs, looking down at Obito, for all the world a king. Kakashi wonders briefly if this is what their enemies see before they die, but… No. Minato holds no kindness for their enemies, and he is undeniably kind when he unfolds the handkerchief from his pocket and bends to press it into Obito’s hand, to curl his fingers around it. “For what it’s worth, it’s the choice that I made too.” 

* * *

When Minato was young, maybe twenty one and getting used to navigating a house with a grumpy, pre-teen Kakashi, Kushina had made a mistake. A mistake big enough to get noticed by Butsuma Senju, who had no patience for the young and no mercy for them either. Mito had been upset, of course, her niece thrown to the wolves for the misstep, and Hashirama had tried to intervene, but it had been Minato who stepped forward and told them, eyes firmly locked on Jiraiya’s, that it was really his fault after all. And his shishou had listened, though he knew Minato was lying. He plead their case before Butsuma, promising to punish Minato for his transgressions and smoothe over the issue with Uzushiogakure completely. 

What Jiraiya took from him, what he gave to him, what he gave to _them_ that day still sits with him on his skin, even a decade later. Kushina still draws her fingers across those marks with bittersweetness, the memory of a commitment that neither of them could erase, no matter how hard they tried. Jiraiya made them promise, in flesh and bone- he made sure that they could not forget the promises they’d made to people far older and far more powerful than they were. He taught them what it meant to be responsible for Senju men and Senju money, and how the currency of their world was passed from hand to hand. 

“I’m sorry, kid,” he’d said, his thumb pressed to Minato’s shoulder, digging into the tender flesh. “There are some lessons we all have to learn the hard way.” 

Sometimes, when he looks at Kushina, Minato can still taste the blood in his mouth and the sharp edge of a knife, still see her steely eyes, and he knows in his heart it was worth it.

He hopes, in this moment, that he’s right about that.

* * *

Kakashi really does shout the second time Minato smacks Obito across the face. He can’t help it, it’s dragged out of him, bitten back only partially at the last second when Minato gives him a warning glance. He’s upset, guilty, enraged, but there’s something different to it that chokes him, stops him in his place. This one has cut Obito’s lip, the sharp edge of his tooth meeting Minato’s knuckle and splitting it open, spilling blood down his chin in ruby droplets, wine-red splatter, pomegranate seeds. It drips onto the carpet, soaking into the cream and ivory pattern. Kakashi can’t look away from it for a moment, from the evidence of what Obito’s taking for him. Minato was clearly careful not to hit Obito’s good eye; unwilling, even in this, to give him more than he can take. 

“It’ll stain,” Obito croaks though his swollen mouth, his hand reflexively twitching around the handkerchief Minato had pressed there, jerking towards the splatter on the carpet, and Minato sighs even as Kakashi considers not biting back the hysterical laughter trying to bubble up in his chest. Of course he’s worried about it staining. His boyfriend, the masochist, taking hits from their boss like it’s nothing, no big deal, getting off on his white-knighting chivalry _bullshit_ , worried about marring Minato’s perfect office rug. 

“Don’t,” Minato says, waving Obito’s objections away. He reaches down with a gentle thumb, wiping the trickle of blood off his lower lip and letting it drip down onto the carpet. Matching seeds, planted there, growing sour and insidious. “Let it stain. I’m going to remember what they made me do to what is _mine_.” It is at that that Obito has to close his eye, to tilt his head back and let Minato’s grasp curl around his throat briefly, squeezing in reassurance and guilt and ugly, acrid remorse. “Do you know what it means to prove your loyalty to this family, Obito?” he asks, letting go and stepping back again. He hits Obito a third time when it takes him too long to answer, lets him hang in the ringing silence and stumble back on his knees, trying to regain his balance. “I guess we’re lucky, really.” He sips his whiskey once more, watching Obito manage to right himself with tempestuous blue eyes, a tropical storm. “They could have asked me to take your other eye.” 

“I’m sorry,” Obito says, more to the both of them than just Minato, as though that could change the roiling upset, the resentment in Kakashi’s bones. His cheeks are red with more than just the impact of their sensei’s hand, his legs shifting restlessly. He looks at Kakashi the way he always has, right before taking a punch for him in school, or handing him the keys to another one of Madara’s cars. Like he’d do it again, like he’d do anything, like their life is just one big adventure and he loves Kakashi enough to fight to the inevitable end of the universe for him. Like it’s nothing more than taking the adrenaline of a bad night and healing over by the time the morning sun rises. 

“I suppose you will be,” Minato sighs regretfully, the sound of his hand across Obito’s jaw still startling, still ringing, even the fourth time, the fifth time, the sixth. When he stops, after the tenth, Obito is starry-eyed and struggling to straighten back up. It obviously hurts, even as much as he’s used to pain, even as much as he doesn’t _mind_ pain, though it’s not entirely clear who it hurts more: Minato, Obito, or Kakashi who stands there with bells in his ears and fire in his throat and an anger-sadness-upset roiling on his tongue. Some part of him recognizes the twistedness of the situation, the fact that Obito’s taking this because he _loves_ it, loves Kakashi. The fact that Obito’s not entirely hurt by it, either, caught up in the tangle of nerve endings and experiences and Kakashi knows that flush on his face is at least partially because the concept of doing this for Kakashi is _getting to him_ . Because Minato was right- right about them, right about Obito, right about the way he takes pain and turns it into fucked up pleasure, right about the fact that his entire being is oriented towards doing things for Kakashi just to _please_ him, and the fact that somehow that extends to _this_. Obito’s mouth is bloody, bitten down, and it’s with great tenderness in complete contrast to the sharpness of his strikes that Minato reaches for the handkerchief Obito has been so patiently holding for his sensei. He slides it out from between clenching fingers, folds it over, dabs lightly at Obito’s lip, and furrows his brow. 

“It does hurt, doesn’t it?” he asks, but he’s not asking the question of Obito, whose pained and confused face is all too obvious. And it is true, even when he smiles at Kakashi, because he _knows_. He knows how deeply it wounds him to see this and be unable to move from his spot, shut out, a spectator to repentance that rightfully should have been his as well. There is a price to pay for missteps, and this price is partly Kakashi’s, partly theirs to share. It hurts Minato as well, that much is clear in the twitch of his mouth, the low-lidded turmoil in his eyes. 

For a moment, though, when he turns his shining teeth on Kakashi, Minato is another man. He is the man that, at any other time, any other place, remains mild, bright, unerringly cheerful. He is the man that scolded Kakashi for thinking he’d ever be mad at him for falling in love with an Uchiha boy, the man that welcomed Obito into their home with open arms, the man that flushed to hear Kushina telling them bawdy jokes, or to find her sneaking them beers during a barbecue. That Minato, however, isn’t really _here_ . There is a great divide, a yawning chasm between that man and the man who makes Obito bleed for their shared sins, who watches him fairly _enjoy_ it. There is a virtuous man who loves his family somewhere in there, but this is not him. _This_ Minato has killed a thousand men, has kissed his lover with their blood still in his mouth, has burnt down temples and palaces and parliaments for his family. Obito shifts again, torn between the tender touch of Minato’s handkerchief across his lip, the sun-red gaze of his lover, the rushing of adrenaline in his ears. Briefly, he almost wonders if Minato will lean in close again, to whisper, to cross another wire in his brain and watch the sparks explode, showering electric embers all across him and scarring him forever. 

“This is all the kindness you can afford,” he murmurs, elegant hands, a murderer’s fingers dragging down the length of Obito’s collar and undoing the top of his shirt. In another life, it is the gentle benediction of a lover, a knot in Kakashi’s throat, a mirror he looks through but cannot shatter and break free from. “I’m sorry for both of us, Obito.”

“Sensei,“ Kakashi chokes out, threads of panic tangling in his veins, a fire in his skull that has no clear origin. He knew what he was getting into, and Obito did too, but neither of them- well. He supposed they had been too caught up in the invincibility of youth to imagine ever having to hear those words from Minato. 

“Kakashi,” Minato gestures without looking, seemingly without noticing his turmoil, beckoning him forward. It takes a moment to animate his stone body again, to jerk forward like a rusted automaton towards the two of them. He sinks to the floor next to Obito and begs his arms to listen, to not reach out and grab him and kiss him whole again. Minato moves to the side, leaning back against his desk and lightly hopping up to sit on the side of it, his whiskey back in his hand. He downs the rest of it like a dying man (although with the way his heart is thundering in his chest, Kakashi supposes they all might be.) He picks up something silver, heavy and engraved, and twirls it around his finger- a knife, the knife Jiraiya gave him a long time ago, with a pearl handle and razor-sharp blade. It looks almost delicate in his hands, though Kakashi knows the heft of it well, had admired it many times before. _Jiraiya gave it to me after he taught me a great lesson_ , Minato had told him, eyes far away and faintly sad. _I hope I never have to give it to you_.

He flips the blade until it’s pointed in towards his wrist, expert and swift, and offers the handle to Kakashi with that same look in his eyes. 

“You have a debt to pay as well,” he says, even and straight as the blade he holds. With his other hand, he unbuttons his shirt, three down then four, until he can pull it to the side and they both see the silver marks hiding there. Like ice down his spine, Kakashi shudders, hand failing and trembling where he tries to reach for the knife. There, in Minato’s tan skin, the kanji for _family_ cut deep and permanent into his flesh. All at once, Kakashi understands- this is the lesson Jiraiya taught him. This is the bitter, twisting thing Minato paid in full, the choice he made long ago for the family and for Kushina, in the end, for himself. This is the price he and Obito must pay. “It will be better this way,” Minato’s lip twists, the edge of a smirk that belies the darkness lurking under his teeth, deep in his chest. Their sensei is a drowning man. “They’ll want proof, you know, and at least, like this… well, perhaps Obito might even get to enjoy it.” 

He might, that’s the sad part, he probably will- the fact is that Kakashi’s cut him like this before, the silver drag of a knife like thready little lines, little paper-thin cuts that got Obito squirming underneath him one night when they were blood-hungry and desperate for each other. They are inextricably linked to the darkness of their profession, the world in which they find themselves, the tangled roots of two trees grafted between carefully cultivated public personas and the pleasure they take in the shadows. He wonders, briefly, how Minato could ever think he would hate him for this, even as the anger and shame and guilt war in his stomach like acid, like the ocean, like the burning hot pits of the sun. Yes, it’s fucked up, it’s crossed lines, it’s yet another blood transfusion between them until there is nothing separating the three of them from the Family, from the Code, from the Will of Fire. But it’s also the only thing they’ve ever known, and Kakashi can’t imagine hating him for the chance at _redemption_ , borne bloody on Minato’s office floor. 

“Well?” Minato says, his voice deceptively kind as he gestures to Obito, blue eyes piercing right through them both. “Aren’t you going to make your promises to him, Kakashi?” 

He does. 

He puts Obito on his back on the rug, sits on him like it might give them some kind of dignity to this. This is the ritual slaughter of their personal selves that had, at one point, belonged to them before they belonged to men with more money, more silver, more blood. And his hand doesn’t tremble, doesn’t waver, just following the lines of an imaginary tattoo made real by crimson, metal, pain. Obito gives up the ghost by the third stroke of the knife, gasping and wheezing and trying to stay still, an altar to a hungry god watching them with deep-sea eyes. He can’t stay quiet, after that, biting off pained groans, choking on his rushing, thundering heart, shamefully half-hard under Kakashi’s thighs even as the blood runs rivulets down his ribcage and the guilt clogs his arteries like quicksilver. This is a promise they cannot forget, an oath made real when Kakashi finishes the final cut, his jaw trembling and his throat raw. In a fit of pique, or maybe to answer for the fact of Obito writhing underneath him, of knowing Obito gets some re-routed pleasure out of this, he slashes his own palm open and slaps it across the bloody kanji like an oath, watching Obito’s jaw flex and a thin, thready whine escape between his gritted teeth. 

He wants to cry.

He wants to kiss Obito down into the carpet and give him a terrible, awful release, the culmination of something too intense, too desperate to be truly good for either of them. Drinking sweet poison, conflicted and confused, overwrought and set adrift. 

He wants to- to be _better_ , for the man watching them with stone-cold eyes, closed off and pensive, permissive and absurd. Minato would probably let them, even, here on his bloodied carpet. He feels their guilt, their shame, their turmoil. He loves them, adores them, protects them from what crueler men might do. Minato _knows_ them. 

_It’s okay, Obito, because I_ **_understand_ ** _you._

Obito is shaking now, trembling, going too cold beneath him and a bit too dazed, so he scrambles off of him with clumsy limbs and presses the handkerchief to the exacting, perfect wound, pushing and forcing his body to close it over. _This_ , Kakashi thinks slightly dazedly, _is what the apple juice was for_. And yet he smiles up at Kakashi like there had never been a sweeter thing, a better gift than that of the blade. As though Kakashi and Minato could have gutted him right there and received his thanks, his praise, his worship. It hurts Kakashi more than Minato hitting him ever could have, that much is true, that much was right. And Minato knew it, too, before Kakashi even thought to wonder. The older man sets his glass down again with a soft clink, having refilled it at some point, and stands from the edge of his desk. When the bleeding slows and scabs over, and Obito sits up, levered by Kakashi’s unsteady arms, Minato kneels beside them and reaches for them both. He traces the line of Kakashi’s old scar, butterfly-kiss-soft across his eye, wistful along the line of his jaw, until he gets to Obito and follows the line of his arm up to his plum and sugar face. 

“Oh, Obito,” Minato sighs, cradling his bruised cheeks in gentle hands, seeing the guilt and glory and ugly, possessive want thick in his illucid eye. “There’s no need to be ashamed of it, you know. You were so good for me, for Kakashi.” He kisses Obito’s forehead, uncaring for the smudge of blood across his lower lip that smears on Minato’s face as though he’s eaten one of them alive. “Sleep in your room here, tonight,” he tells them, more of an order than a suggestion, and Obito nods helplessly, his eyes brimming a little bit with tears and his breath still coming quick and shallow in his chest. “Go on, Kakashi, take care of him,” he stands, turns, grabbing his glass and going to refill it once more. He desperately needs to call Kushina, to reconcile the fire in his ribcage, to seek absolution for a crime he watched her commit ten years ago and still, still stumbled through. “You both deserve something better than what I’ve given you.” 

He holds them there for a moment in the tension, the sheer strumming weight of a violin string held taut, and then-

He lets them go. 

* * *

The fire doesn’t go away, even when they stumble through the hallway, even when the door of his old bedroom is shut behind them and Obito is laid out shaking on the bed. He reaches for Kakashi in a familiar way, the old masochism of wanting to hurt and then wanting Kakashi to make it better with his lips, his tongue, his teeth. Kakashi can be sweet to him, like that, even if he’s angry at no one, at everyone, at the stars and the sun and the sky all at once. Kakashi can apologize to him with this, even if he doesn’t want the apology, even if he doesn’t need it. 

“I told him there was something wrong with you,” Kakashi bites out, jerking at Obito’s shirt, shoving it off him and away from the bloody mess on his chest. “I said there was something wrong with you the day we met-” 

“And you were right,” Obito laughs, gravelly and faint, strung out on the burning pain and the sick swirl of endorphins in his stomach. “But I love you, don’t I?”

“You do, you fucking- you _fool_ ,” Kakashi near-hisses, kissing him through the sharp copper of blood, the wince of pain from his broken flesh, the uncomfortable catch of his sharp canines on Obito’s tender lip. They slot together as easily as ever, no matter how they quake with the aftermath of gut wrenching fear, intense emotion. He wants to be gentle. He _can_ be gentle with his hands on Obito’s chest, his fingers sliding over Obito’s wrists, keeping him here like something precious, fragile, shattered apart. 

It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. 

Kakashi will put him back together with gold and solder. He will make them whole with tremorous hands, with apologies written out across his skin in silver ink on a diamond nib, covering over all the ugly parts of the way they love each other, the things they would do for one another, the ways in which they would die. This is the reality to reconcile, the covenant they are bound to, the family they have chosen and been chosen by without a choice. They are not good men, not virtuous men, but they can be good to each other in the aftermath of their absolution for a crime lesser men (less important men, less loved men) would have died for. And they may regret it, one day, passingly- that aching, inexplicable scar too heavy when they’re watching a woman they both love dance in the kitchen to old records, or spying the way Kushina’s hand trails down Minato’s chest over those silver lines, or even dreaming of the way blood spilled on that cream carpet like a pomegranate crushed beneath the heel of an angry, amorous god. But they will never _forget_ it, will they?

Obito kisses him like he truly believes Kakashi has done nothing wrong. It has to be enough, a reminder that they knew what they were getting into when they took up this line of work, a marking point on their moral compass gone so astray. It has to be enough, for now. They meet each other like dying stars because there is nothing else for them but crashing, burning, coming together. This is the gift they are given- the ability for Kakashi to brace himself against the mattress and pull at Obito’s hair, to lick a length of coppery wetness up the side of his neck and carefully, gently avoid his purpling bruises. He knows it feels good to Obito like the cold crush of ice on a black eye, like a hot bath on aching muscles, like the rush of oxytocin blurring the aching nerve endings in his face and chest. He knows it feels good because Obito clutches him closer, begs him without bitterness, simply sweet and desperate all for him. Kakashi gives him this, holding him tightly, thinking about all the times they lay like this before, fresh in love under a summer moon. They were not burned by the dark side of the sun, back then, not blistered nor raw, simply taking pleasure from one another. Now, Kakashi pulls release from Obito’s flesh like pulling splinters, daggers, shards of glass, rocking rough against him until he arches and comes, flushed and panting and painted alizarin crimson like a masterpiece shredded by ruthless palette knives. He is a ruddy pink azalea, sunrise blooming dawn, soft and swollen kisses laid fresh upon Kakashi’s mouth like offerings from some enamored goddess. 

“I’d die for you, Kakashi,” Obito breathes, the same words he spoke a bare few years ago in this same bed. “I’d kill for you.” 

To hear those words hurts worse than anything- than watching the warehouse burn, and knowing they were in so much fucking trouble. Than worrying that this was really it, and they were going to end up at the bottom of the Naka river. Than watching Jiraiya’s, Hashirama’s, Madara’s, Tobirama’s, Izuna’s disappointment and rage. Than seeing Minato hit Obito right across the face and more, more so than knowing he had to cut a promise into Obito’s skin, to scar him more than he already had been, Obito wanting him to do it anyway. 

He loves Obito more than he loves life itself. 

He’d die for him.

He’d kill for him. 

He’s _family_.

* * *

In the morning, it isn’t Obito who flinches away from a merciful touch- he reaches out towards Minato over the smell of coffee brewing and the sound of the microwave humming, and Minato jolts like he’s been struck by lightning. 

“The Hyuuga have been dealt with,” he says, rather jerkily, stone statue cold, looking over Obito’s shoulder at Kakashi like he can’t bear to see the purple-blue-green of his bones on Obito’s jaw. “Hashirama is pleased with you.” Obito holds him anyway, lets Minato rest his forehead over the bandages on his chest, rusty movement and creaking joints. He understands, maybe more deeply than any born Senju, the fierce loyalty demanded by a family. Kakashi knows it, can see the reverence with which Obito treats this, this wound between the three of them. “Maybe it was selfish of me to keep the both of you, to ask this of you,” Minato mutters after a long moment of pained breath, muffled slightly by the force of Obito’s embrace. He holds Minato like he could force self-forgiveness into his cells, his lungs, his heart. 

“Oh, Sensei,” Kakashi finally sighs, the great settling of a glacier between his ribs. There is no turning back. “When have we ever done what you asked us to anyway?”

That familiarity, at least, can heal them. 

They’ll be okay.

* * *

They all have scars. 

Kushina has the drag of a rusty nail on the old swings down her right arm, the blur of too many acne bumps worried incessantly on the edge of her cheek, the stretch of barbed wire dug into her thigh. Kakashi has the pearly slash across his palm, the faint line along his upper lip, the near-invisible teeth marks like ghostly little lilac blooms on his shoulder. Minato has the bite of a blade through his sixth rib, the gnarled root of a bullet on his hip, the long-loved trace of a fingernail along his shoulder blade.

And Minato has a scar that they don’t talk about, too. If it’s up to Kushina, they never will.


End file.
